Some 40 security officials affiliated with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party fled to Egypt on Wednesday, to escape the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials said.

The Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group allied with Hamas, said Wednesday evening that it had taken control of Gaza's border with Egypt to prevent arms smuggling and to ensure that Gaze residents did not flee over the border.

At least 24 Palestinians were killed in Wednesday clashes. An estimated 65 have died since Saturday in the fiercest internal violence in months between the Islamic Hamas movement and the secular Fatah, with no end in sight after a series of failed Egyptian-brokered cease-fires.

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Egyptian border and security officials said the security men, members of the Preventive Security forces, were being held in the custody of the Egyptian security forces.

The gunmen detonated an explosive device along the Philadelphi route, near the Gaza-Egypt border. The explosion destroyed part of the wall along the border, and the gunmen fled through the gap.

Dozens of other Palestinians massed at the closed border, the officials said.

Palestinian civilians have been unable to cross the border, which has been closed for several days, the officials said.

Hamas, which has seized most of the Fatah-allied security force compounds in Gaza, on Wednesday detonated a one-ton bomb under the headquarters of the Preventative Security in the southern town of Khan Yunis.

At least one person was killed and eight others were wounded in the blast, medics said.